Generally, a front vehicle body of a vehicle is a frame structure that is positioned at a front side of the vehicle in a longitudinal direction of the vehicle while forming an engine compartment, and includes a front end module that forms a front portion of the engine compartment and accommodates a cooling module, a head lamp, etc.; a front fender apron member that forms left and right portions of the engine compartment and in which wheels are installed; and a firewall which is positioned at a rear portion of the engine compartment and partitions a passenger compartment and the engine compartment.
Further, front side members extending in the longitudinal direction of the vehicle are disposed at left and right sides of an area below the engine compartment, respectively, to reinforce structural strength of the front vehicle body, and a sub-frame is disposed below the front side members so as to support the engine and a transmission at the engine compartment as well as a suspension system, etc.
At a front end of the front side members, a bumper beam extending in a width direction of the vehicle is installed so as to enhance the front collision response performance of the vehicle. The bumper beam is connected to the front end of the front side member in the longitudinal direction of the vehicle via a crash box.
When the vehicle provided with the front vehicle body having the above-described structure frontally collides with an object such as an obstacle or another vehicle in a small overlap while the vehicle is traveling, that is, when a collision object such as a small overlap barrier collides with an outer portion of the vehicle body in a state in which the collision object deviates to one side in a width direction of the vehicle, occupants cannot be safely protected because the collision object collides with an outer vehicle body portion with relatively weak rigidity in a state in which it deviates from the front side member and the front side member cannot effectively cope with the frontal small overlap collision of the vehicle, thereby causing an excessive collision damage to the vehicle.
To this end, methods for coping with the small overlap collision by reinforcing the outer portion of the vehicle body are being developed.
For example, extending a frontal front end portion of the front fender apron member to a frontal front end portion of the front side member, forming a structure in which connecting members are connected to each other or a structure in which a reinforcement member for preventing the collision object from breaking in is mounted on the outer side of the front side member, etc., are proposed, but it is not effective for coping with the front small overlap collision.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention and therefore it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.